1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for implementing a hybrid approach towards consolidation or distributing computer applications in general, and to unified deployment and management of applications in remote locations, in particular.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Continuous innovation in the information technology (IT) industry creates varying trends of distribution and consolidation of IT infrastructure and application. When mainly mainframe computing platforms were used, the ruling approach was consolidation. Later, when personal computers became more available, the approach changed towards distribution, which changed back towards consolidation with the increase in number of computers employed within an organization. The tendencies towards a more consolidated or a more distributed approach stem from contradicting considerations and requirements. Quality of service (QoS) considerations usually suggest taking a more distributed approach, wherein the performance experienced by a user of an application does not depend on communication with a remote computer. However, total cost of ownership (TCO) considerations suggest higher degree of consolidation, wherein operations such as installation, updates, backups, or the like are carried out in a single location, thus requiring less time and manpower resources. In current technologies, both the distributed and the consolidated approaches rely heavily on Wide Area Networks (WAN) for deployment and usage of applications by remote users. Traditional networking vendors such as CISCO Systems, Inc. from California developed the Application Oriented Networking (AON) technology which operate as a set of distributed application and network services that span business, security, administrative, and network domains. On the other hand, application infrastructure products, such as IBM WebSphere Edge Server V2.0 for Multiplatforms, manufactured by IBM Corporation from New York distributes application processing to the edge of the network under centralized administrative and application control. Yet another prior art approach suggests the usage of a pair of executables, wherein one executable represents a pure virtual reflected service, while the other represents a consumed service. However, this approach does not enable the activation of any application-aware computational process in the remote locations, i.e. a remote location is not provided with any knowledge regarding the application. Therefore, every application transaction requires a round trip comprising a query and a response to a server, which is usually physically placed in a data center.
There is therefore a need in the art for a comprehensive solution that will utilize capabilities both in application building and deployment and in networking and will optimize the distributed and the consolidated approaches, thus providing enhanced quality of service as well as enhanced performance for applications and services used by multiple remote users. The solution should also supply single management and deployment for services which are provided by multiple executables in multiple locations.